Wheeeew. That was about the strangest game I've ever seen. The Hawks outclassed the Heat nearly the entire night in just about every facet of the game, yet because of that ridiculous 19-4 run by Miami to close the second quarter, we had ourselves a nailbiter.

I am on my way to the airport to catch the team plane, so I will have to be relatively brief, so why not use a few bullets to talk about tonight's HUGE 81-71 win over Miami, knotting the series at 2-2 and sending us back to Atlanta with homecourt intact.

• Can't say enough about the play of Zaza Pachulia tonight. He was the MVP for the Hawks, not only because of his play on the court in general, but because it came in relief of Al Horford, who spent much of the game on the bench in foul trouble. Big Z had 12 points and 18 rebounds, much of which came on the offensive end.
• Zaza was big, but at the same time this was a total team effort tonight. Six Hawks in double figures, all spread somewhere between 10 and 15 points.
• The defense was outstanding. As they've done all series, they forced Dwyane Wade to shoot jumpers from the perimeter, and he couldn't keep up his hot streak from the last two games. Wade ended the night with a game-high 22 points, but they came on 27 shots from the field - a stat the Hawks will take every time.
• As expected, the Heat returned to Earth from long-range. 4-16 for the game (25%), and 1-8 from Wade in particular.
• If Zaza was MVP, Josh Smith gets runner-up. He was aggressive all night long both shooting and passing, and it paid dividends. Smoove had several and-1s as well as a few bullet passes to find teammates down low for easy buckets. His offensive rebound late in the game which sprung Flip Murray for a lay-up was pretty much the final nail in the Heat's coffin.

Momentum. It's a funny thing. The Heat had it all rolling after two straight wins, but now we're back where we started, with the Hawks holding homecourt and heading back to what should be a raucous Philips Arena for Wednesday night's Game 5.

This was as big a test of the Hawks' will as they've had in the Mike Woodson Era, and as far as I'm concerned, they passed with flying colors.